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Useful LinksAugust 2012 - KeelyNet News 2012 - Free Energy / Gravity Control / Electronic Health / Alternative Science - 01/02/12
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Updated 04/22/10
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05/29/13 -
Is WiFi destroying your brain?
Is your face getting hot right now? Do you feel an itch or a burn around your eyes, your mouth, perhaps a tightening in your throat? Are you finding it difficult to breathe? Focus? Swallow?
Here, let me adjust the frequency. It is, after all, a new and experimental WiFi system we?re testing in your home, very powerful, located in that box near your very delicate skull.
How about now? Headache? Feeling dizzy? Heart racing? Difficult to stand or walk? Yes, the blinking light on the box means it?s working. Let?s turn the signal up, but place it slightly further away. Better? Worse?
How do you feel now? Foolish? Justified? Are you still in pain? Of course you are. Because you sort of feel like you should be. Because you are convinced.
I am not making this up. Behold, yet another fascinating study, published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Research, where researchers tested nearly exactly what I describe above: A powerful new WiFi antenna, placed on subjects? heads to see how well it worked and what, if any, ill effects might result.
Can you guess? How many subjects felt hot, dizzy, sickened, even so incapacitated by this strong and experimental WiFi they couldn?t even walk?
Answer: More than half. More than half.
The catch, of course, was there was no WiF the antenna was a fake. The participants were in no actual danger whatsoever, save for that generated by their own minds, their own expectations, their innate conditionings and fears.
Are you surprised by these results? Doubtful. The effects were startling, but not at all unusual. The power of the human animal to convince itself something must be very wrong, that we are weak, in danger, ever at the mercy of nefarious forces we do not understand, when we actually aren?t, has been around since the dawn of, well, advertising.
This effect has a name: it?s called the nocebo effect, the ?evil twin? of the placebo effect, defined as ?the power of our conviction to cause real physical illness.? Sound familiar? Truly, it takes little common sense and merely a glimpse at the totality of the human experiment ? along with many other easily available studies ? to see the overarching pattern, to understand the nocebo effect to be exceedingly true not merely for technology, but also for food, love, religion, health, fate and much of human life overall.
Conviction creates reality. Energy flows where attention goes. And some people just can?t take it, not one little bit. So they move far, far away.
05/29/13 -
Rossi Cold fusion reactor claims 10,000X energy density of gasoline
The cold fusion device being tested has roughly 10,000 times the energy density and 1,000 times the power density of gasoline. Even allowing for a massively conservative margin of error, the scientists say that the cold fusion device they tested is 10 times more powerful than gasoline ? which is currently the best fuel readily available to mankind.
The device being tested, which is called the Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat for short), was created by Andrea Rossi. Rossi has been claiming for the past two years that he had finally cracked cold fusion, but much to the chagrin of the scientific community he hasn?t allowed anyone to independently analyze the device ? until now.
While it sounds like the scientists had a fairly free rein while testing the E-Cat, we should stress that they still don?t know exactly what?s going on inside the sealed steel cylinder reactor. Still, the seven scientists, all from good European universities, obviously felt confident enough with their findings to publish the research paper.
Andrea Rossi and his colleague Sergio Focardi have previously said their device works by infusing hydrogen into nickel, transmuting the nickel into copper and releasing a large amount of heat.
While Rossi hasn?t provided much in the way of details ? he?s a very secretive man, it seems ? we can infer some knowledge from NASA?s own research into cold fusion. Basically, hydrogen ions (single protons) are sucked into a nickel lattice (pictured right); the nickel?s electrons are forced into the hydrogen the nickel nuclei a the neutrons are stripped of their electro and thus the nickel goes up in atomic number from 28 to 29, becoming copper.
This process, like the ?conventional? fusion of hydrogen atoms into helium, produces a lot of heat.
As far as we can tell, the main barrier to cold fusion ? as with normal fusion ? is producing more energy than you put in. In NASA?s tests, it takes a lot more energy to fuse the nickel and hydrogen than is produced by the reaction. Rossi, it would seem, has discovered a secret sauce that significantly reduces the amount of energy required to start the reaction.
As for what the secret sauce is, no one knows ? in the research paper, the independent scientists simply refer to it as ?unknown additives.? All told, the E-Cat seems to have a power density of 4.4×105 W/kg, and an energy density of 5.1×107 Wh/kg.
If Rossi and Focardi?s cold fusion technology turns out to be real ? if the E-Cat really has 10,000 times the energy density and 1,000 times the power density of gasoline ? then the world will change, very, very quickly. S we?ll let you know when ? or if ? the E-Cat passes peer review.
05/29/13 -
Burnaby fusion lab unfazed by claims of Italian cold fusion claims
Michael Delage, vice-president of business development at General Fusion in Burnaby, said it?s too early to say whether Rossi?s invention, which so far has not been rigorously tested enough to secure U.S. or international patents, could be a game-changer.
?Rossi has been making news on and off for the last few years,? he said.
??You?ve got to show that you can build things at scale and reliability and you?ve got to be able to produce power for the grid ? so who knows??
General Fusion is one of the few labs in the world that is trying to build a power plant capable of catalyzing nuclear fusion, which is the atomic reaction that fuels stars.
By contrast, cold fusion would occur at or near room temperature, and has largely been rejected as a failed experiment by the mainstream scientific community.
Delage said General Fusion will continue its quest to demonstrate nuclear fusion, also known as hot fusion, armed with $40 million in venture capital, a team of 11 PhDs and a support staff of more than 50.
So far, it has built 14 of 200 high-speed pistons it needs to complete a full-scale proof-of-concept fusion generator, and the company figures with enough capital the plant could be complete within three years.
To build the rest, Delage said, it will just need to raise another $150 million ? but that is pocket change when compared to the potential fiscal and environmental rewards of providing cheap, plentiful, and clean energy for generations to come.
(One of the comments sums up the reality of the "Ignorance not of theory but of reality is the only reason that these people are unfazed." - JWD)
05/29/13 -
Chevy Spark electric car's price 38% less than hybrid Volt
The Chevrolet Spark all-electric subcompact car will cost U.S. buyers as much as 38 percent less than what it takes to buy its larger sibling, the hybrid Volt, General Motors Co said on Thursday.
The 2014 Spark EV, which goes on sale next month in California and Oregon, will sell for as low as $19,995 after accounting for the full federal tax credit of $7,500, GM said. The larger Chevy Volt, which was introduced in the fall of 2010, sells for about $32,500 after the tax credit.
The rollout of the Spark EV continues GM's push to seize the mantle of "greenest automaker in the world" from Toyota Motor Corp., which makes the popular Prius hybrid car. Toyota also sells a plug-in version of the Prius.
California Spark EV owners also could qualify for an additional $2,500 in state tax credits and incentives, GM said. The car will lease for as low as $199 a month for 36 months with $999 due at signing.
GM previously said the Spark EV will be able to travel twice as far on an electric charge as the plug-in hybrid Volt can go before its gas engine kicks in.
The Spark EV has a combined city/highway range of 82 miles when fully charged as estimated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The Volt gets about 40 miles on an electric charge. The Spark EV's fuel economy is equivalent to 119 miles per gallon on an EPA-estimated combined city/highway basis.
05/29/13 -
Expelling alien materials, dead and dying cells to heal and rejuvenate
About the legend of the elixir of life which is claimed to cause the body to
expel all dead and dying tissues as well as anything alien to the body.
How do the cells know to extrude/eject the damaged/dead cells out of the body?
I'd guess its the function of white blood cells, macrophages, the immune system
and the lymph nodes.
So if you have an implant and you take this liquid, the implant, not being
natural to the body would be forcibly expelled. I'd imagine painful???
There was a fellow named Sanford Bennett whose story is posted at .
He uses a type of muscle tensioning pattern which he claims 'squeezes' toxins out of the body.
That makes me wonder if this mystery rejuvenation liquid, the elixir of life, would it cause the muscles to contract and 'milk' the toxins (alien invaders), dead and dying cells out of the body?
So on taking this aqua vitae/elixir of life would you go into 'convulsions' as the cells alternately contract and release in a pattern sufficient to squeeze out the toxins or dead/dying cells?
Like squeezing a sponge to push out alien materials....that is similar to the principle Lee Crock said was why he believed his energy cleaner worked...which I sell as the .
<pLee claimed his 'energy cleaner' assists the body to purge toxins from the cells. His analogy goes
"It's like taking a bucket lined with dried mud which is similar to the toxins that build up in the cell. If you fill the bucket with water and empty it, you have removed some of the toxins.
By continually filling and emptying the bucket with fresh water, you will eventually have a clean bucket. This is what is believed to happen in the cells when using the machine.
One polarity pulls fluid into the cells, the other polarity ejects the fluid, now laden with toxins, from the cells."
So the idea is to flush the toxins from the cells. Lee also recommended drinking more water than usual to provide the body with more liquid to cleanse the cells.
The cycling of the negative and positive energy is thought to cause a kind of iontophoretic repulsion or attaction where toxins are moved electrically out of the body in a kind of milking fashion.
The ideas and practice of Bennett't theory is worth study and experimentation as a NATURAL way to expel
"Despairing of relief from doctors and drugs he finally devised a series of some 35 different exercises to be done in bed before arising in the morning.
After following them faithfully for years he had become, in all respects, a young man at 70. This was attested by medical examinations. His face had become smooth without a single wrinkle.
His theory was that the body gets old through the accumulation of mineral deposits in the tissues, which finally become stiff and inelastic.
The object of his exercises was to contract and then relax all the muscles and
tissues to squeeze the mineral deposits out to be carried off in the blood
It's really quite a brilliant idea and with concentration and effort on a daily basis it apparently worked for Bennett and others who followed his regimen.
Now what if someone developed a series of electrical patterns based on Bennetts patterns, which caused this 'electronic' milking of the MUSCLES and cells in an OUTWARD FASHION to cause toxins and other damaging materials to be milked out of the body?
Kind of like the body being a dirty sponge and the electrical patterns would squeeze it in Bennetts patterns with each use. Have to work on this, would be an excellent new medical technology that anyone could use, just lie on some absorbent towels and crank it up to squeeze out the toxins.
I'm sure this would take TIME to achieve and you'd have to drink more water to help the body squeeze out the toxins, ideally increased urination as I have experienced with the use of the Mexistim and many others report the same effect...with the expelled urine at first being smelly and dark and with ingestion of more than usual water, over a 2-4 day period the urine becomes clear and with little or no odor.
So it would seem like a good idea to drink more water to help this electronic muscle squeezing effect to purge toxins from the body.
If you build one of these Bennett Multi-Electrode TENS units and trials work out, YOU OWE ME A FREE UNIT for the idea! I'm getting old and need to flush my system like everyone else...but no one will fund me to do these types of rejuvenation experiments. Download his book or read it online at
05/29/13 -
Drone able to track and round up sheep and cows
Hill farming may soon change forever with the introduction of a battery-powered airborne robot to track and round up flocks.
The drone, developed by Frenchman Marc-Alexandre Favier, costs a few hundred pounds and could eventually be controlled by smartphone.
It uses cameras and image recognition software to find sheep and cows even in remote areas.
Favier, 27, a postgraduate student at Harper Adams University College, Shropshire, told the Sunday Times: 'It's amazing that the technology is becoming so developed that this sort of thing is possible.'
The son of a farmer, he has designed a prototype Unmanned Air System (UAS) to be used as an eye in the sky to manage and monitor livestock on very large and remote estates.
He used an AR Drone 2 with a camera attached to the bottom to allow the user to get a bird?s eye view and came up with a computer programme which instructs the drone to locate, recognise and track livestock.
Although the drone can be controlled via WiFi on a computer, the aim is for farmers to be able to control it using an iPhone or smartphone.
'The number of robots for professional use is increasing significantly - so it is very important to be up-to-date with robotics - it's the future and the present'
said: 'The number of robots for professional use is increasing significantly so it is very important to be up-to-date with robotics - it?s the future and the present.'
He said his prototype was designed with Scottish sheep farmers in mind, many of whom spend large amounts of time and cover many miles monitoring their livestock.
Former One Man presenter Clarissa Dickson Wright was unimpressed by the technological breakthrough. 'There is no substitute for a dog and a shepherd,' she said.
(So they could splatter you with an invisible fluorescent dye that would glow brightly under UV, oh so many fun possibilities with this! - JWD)
05/29/13 -
12 Early Uses of Electricity...
When mankind first figured out how this mysterious thing called electricity worked, everyone went a little crazy for a while there. Electricity was given diverse and often unbelievably ridiculous uses that ranged from the stupid to the cruel to the perverted ... you know, kind of like what we're doing with the Internet today.
Turns out people in the "Age of Enlightenment" weren't as smart or classy as their mustaches would seem to suggest. Let us introduce you to the most surprising trends stemming from early electricity, like ...
Back in the 18th and 19th century, everyone wanted to experience electricity -- literally. People in France, for example, would line up to voluntarily shock themselves with the newly invented generators, like a nation of babies who haven't learned not to stick their fingers in the wall sockets. The above image from 1844 is called "An Electrocuted Warrior," and it shows a French official finding out what being tased feels like.
Scientists, intrepid seekers of arcane knowledge that they are, were the first to willingly taste the volts. Researchers shocked themselves silly to gauge the strength of the voltage, reporting nosebleeds, headaches, convulsions, and hours and hours of shaking. British investigator Johann Winkler, even after reporting horrible side effects, still went ahead and shocked his wife twice, just to verify his findings.
Controlling unruly horses with electricity - in the image above, you can see that the carriage comes equipped with an electricity generator (the tiny box under the rider's hand), which when activated sends a shock through the reins. A description of this "ingenious and efficacious method" of controlling unruly horses claims that the animal felt "a disagreeable but not painful sensation of an electric pricking." Considering that the shock was administered directly on the horse's teeth, we think it was probably a little more than a "pricking" (you're free to chew a wire if you don't believe us).
The same inventor later came up with an electric whip. Then again, electrocuting animals was one of America's favorite pastimes in the 19th century, and it wasn't just that dickwad Thomas Edison doing it, as we've mentioned before -- Ben Franklin also killed his share of critters. And speaking of animal abuse ...
Medical Electric Baths - Despite sitting in what looks like a steampunk torture device, this gentleman looks remarkably calm about the situation. That's because those ghastly spikes above the man's head actually emit electric waves that "bathe" him in pure healing science. The plus and minus signs represent the magnetic charges that are no doubt rendering his sperm sterile.
This bath is just one of countless electric therapies Enlightenment doctors pulled out of their asses. They would blast away any ailment, from a sore throat to your STD of choice. Does your kid have diarrhea? Try some electricity. Granny suffers from rheumatism? Hook her up to the current. Even major complaints like paralysis or tuberculosis were deemed entirely manageable with a good shock or 16. Sometimes the thing to do was to step into a literal electric bath ...
... and sometimes the doctor would invert the process and draw sparks out of you, a preferred treatment for deafness.
And if you think these were just ruthless quacks taking advantage of the ignorant masses, even Charles Darwin's brilliant grandfather Erasmus was known to prescribe electric shocks for everything from toothache to gallstones. We don't want to know where they inserted the wires on that last one.
Electric Brushes - Electric brushes were a popular fad of the latter half of the 19th century, as this delightfully racist ad demonstrates. Besides supposedly curing male pattern baldness and dandruff, this particular brand of multitasking electric hairbrush will somehow also rid you of headaches, rheumatism, and even constipation. Wait, under what scenario is this thing even close to the part of the body where digestion happens (or doesn't)? What type of body hair does Dr. Scott think we're brushing?
05/29/13 -
Mike Rowe: Learning from dirty jobs
Mike Rowe the host of "Dirty Jobs," tells some compelling (and horrifying) real-life job stories. Listen for his insights and observations about the nature of hard work, and how its been unjustifiably degraded in society today.
(In high school, my brother, I and all our friends were 'Future Farmers Of America'...our vocational ag teacher Mr. Kidwell (that's his real name) castrated a sheep in front of us by biting its balls off!!! phreaked us out! I never understood why he did that, but NOW I KNOW!!! - JWD)
05/29/13 -
Add external power to any USB hub
[Andrew] was getting some poor performance from a couple of USB devices he had connected through an unpowered hub. This is a problem because the hub prevents devices from negotiating with the host controller for more current. He fixed it by adding an external power supply to his USB hub.
In this case the PCB already had a footprint for a power connector. The manufacturer uses one board for several different models and just leaves the supply components unpopulated. [Andrew] managed to find a barrel jack in his parts bin that matched the footprint.
One important thing to do before hooking up the source is to disconnect the 5v wire from the incoming cable from the computer. The other tip we can give you is to use a good regulated 5v source to ensure you don?t damage the stuff you?re trying to power.
You can do this hack in any USB hub, even if the hub doesn't come with holes to place the connector. The only things you have to do are:
Locate the GND and VCC traces and solder a wire to each one of them.
Solder a connector to the wires.
Cut the VCC (red) wire of the USB cable that connects the hub to the computer.
The USB hub also works with the Raspberry Pi. However I didn't test the webcams with the Raspberry Pi yet. If you want you can check my previous post about my first impressions on the Raspberry Pi.
05/29/13 -
Shocking your brain and making yourself smarter
Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation ? or tDCS ? is the technique of applying electrodes to the skull and running a small but perceptible current through them. It?s not much current ? usually on the order of 1 or 2 mA, but the effect of either increasing or decreasing neural activity has led to some interesting studies. [Theo] over on Instructables wrote a tutorial for making his own tDCS suppy that will supply 2 mA to electrodes placed on the skull for everyone to experiment with.
The basic idea behind tDCS is to put the positive electrode over the part of the brain to be excited or the negative electrode over the part of the brain to be inhibited. This is a well-studied technique that can be used to improve mathematical ability. It?s not electroshock therapy (although that is a valid treatment for depression and schizophrenia) in that
tDCS just applies a small current to specific areas of the brain to excite or inhibit function.
is a simple circuit made of a transistor, resistors, and a few diodes to provide about 2 mA to a pair of electrical contacts. With this circuit and a few gel electrode pads for your head, you too can experiment with direct current stimulation of your brain.
This is the schematic of a working 2mA current supply that may be used for tDCS. It is based on the transistor regulator described in the previous step. Parts were added to allow on/off functionality, on state indication, and redundant safety measures.
---PARTS LIST---
B1: 4 9V battery clips, series configuration (add 9V batteries to provide power)
S1: SPST switch
D1: indicator LED
D2-D4: 1n400x (I used 1n4003)
T1: TIP31C (or TIP29C)
R1,R2: 12 kohm 250mW
R3,R4: 2.2 kohm 250mW
R5: 560 ohm 250mW
R6:100 ohm 250mW
Wires and gel electrodes are easiest to find sold for TENS devices, but will allow tDCS, though only in areas that are hairless.
W1: electrode leads (such as these or these)
E1,E2: gel electrode pads (of this type)
Perfboard is best for assembling this circuit permanently. Hot-melt glue is useful for gluing wires in place to prevent strain.
05/29/13 -
Estimated lost economic value of America's war dead: $44.6 Billion
The price tag is estimated by Linda J. Bilmes of the Harvard Kennedy School to total somewhere between four and six trillion dollars.
The decision to finance the wars almost entirely through borrowing has already added more than 1.3 trillion dollars to the national debt.
And then there?s the direct human cost: more than six thousand soldiers have died, and up to another six thousand contractors.
And then there's the number which is the focus of this piece: $44.6 billion, the total estimated lost economic value of the American war dead.
(It's bad enough we let these trumped up INVASIONS of other countries happen for OIL, not terrorism, but we LET IT HAPPEN and the worst part is we LET IT CONTINUE destroying American lives, innocents in other countries and our countries resources which is STAGGERINGLY unbelievable.
What's up with all of us? What will people in the future think of what STUPID WUSSIES WE WERE by letting it get started, then, knowing the damage, we let it continue like sheep. - JWD)
05/29/13 -
Chinese teen scrawls graffitti in Egypt's 3,500 year old Luxor Temple
A 15-year-old vandal carved the words 'Ding Jinhao was here' in Chinese in the 3,500 year old Luxor Temple in Egypt. Back home in China, his fellow countrymen replied online: "Christ, what an asshole."
- Earlier this month, Chinese Vice Premier Wang Yang called on his country?s tourists to improve their behavior while abroad. Less than two weeks later, Chinese netizens were outraged after user Kongyouwuyi on Weibo, China?s version of Twitter, posted a photo of graffiti on a 3,500-year-old temple in Luxor, Egypt.
The photo showed several Chinese characters scratched onto the temple, reading: Ding Jinhao was here. "The sentence means Ding Jinhao has visited this place. This was the saddest and most shameful moment I had in Egypt,? wrote Kongyouwuyi in his Weibo post, according to China?s Global Times. ?I apologized to our local tour guide, who comforted me instead, saying this was not our fault, and that it should be the local guide's responsibility to stop such behavior.?
The photograph quickly went viral and was forwarded more than 90,000 times. China?s netizens launched what is known as a ?human flesh? search and in less than a day tracked down Ding, discovering he is a 15-year-old in the city of Nanjing. His school?s website was quickly hacked.
The boy?s parents reached out to local media, and apologized for their son Saturday. "We want to apologize to the Egyptian people and to people who have paid attention to this case across China," Ding's mother told local newspaper Modern Express, according to the BBC.
"The boy has known about it since Friday and cried all night. He has had to be moved around because reporters rushed to their house for interviews," the Modern Express reporter who talked with the parents told the Global Times. The father called on China?s netizens to leave his son alone: "The kid has a good academic record, but is a little introverted. This is too much pressure for him to take."
05/29/13 -
Police trick people into buying "stolen" iPhones, then arrest them
If a shady character stops you on the streets of San Francisco and tries to sell you a stolen iPhone or iPad, he just might be a cop.
San Francisco Police Department officers are going undercover to peddle "stolen" Apple devices, and whoever takes the bait gets taken down (by five cops no less!). The Huffington Post's Gerry Smith reports that SFPD created a special task force three years ago to combat "Apple picking." Similar task forces can be found in New York City and Washington, D.C.
"If they steal the phone but can't sell it, there's no market," says San Francisco Police Capt. Joe Garrity. "We're cutting the head off the snake."
Capt. Joe might want to take it easy with the hyperbole, especially when Apple picking is a crime that he himself equates with purse snatching, and when San Francisco's finest could be spending more time on more serious crimes.
Around the time the SFPD was cooking up its iPhone task force, The San Francisco Examiner revealed that the department had more than 1,000 unsolved murders and about 900 unsolved rapes on its hands. A year later, San Francisco Attorney General George Gascon, who was police chief at the time of the revelation, told a reporter he had "forgot" about his department's unfinished business.
So there's no need for cops to create crimes because lots of people have already committed crimes, crimes much worse than Apple picking.
05/29/13 -
Serotonin found to influence sexual preference in mice
"When Yi Rao of Peking University in Beijing, China, and his colleagues genetically engineered female mice so that they could no longer make or respond to serotonin, it appeared to affect their sexuality.
Although they would still mate with males if no other females were present, given the choice, the rodents preferred sniffing and mounting females." [New Scientist]
05/29/13 -
Money and Life
A very annoying film in that there is no succinct description of what the film is ABOUT. Instead they seem to focus solely on soliciting donations. The closest thing I could find was a viewer comment.
Comment: "Probably?when so much wealth has been transferred upwards that enough people can't get food on their tables or can't afford a place to live any more. Then something will happen one way or another. Good or bad. The more debt compared to income, the faster the transfer. Still, enough people haven't had enough obviously.. so it will continue further."
'The language of the money system is hydraulics.' (via , thanks Vlad! - JWD)
05/29/13 -
Predicting IQ With a Simple Visual Test
"Scientists at the University of Rochester found a unique way to measure high IQ and IQ of the brain in general just by studying individuals and their abilities to filter out noise in images (abstract).
The results of a visual test where people were told to quickly detect movements showed similar IQ results as a classic intelligence test.
'The relationship between IQ and motion suppression points to the fundamental cognitive processes that underlie intelligence, the authors write.
The brain is bombarded by an overwhelming amount of sensory information, and its efficiency is built not only on how quickly our neural networks process these signals, but also on how good they are at suppressing less meaningful information. ...
The researchers point out that this vision test could remove some of the limitations associated with standard IQ tests, which have been criticized for cultural bias.'"
As expected, people with higher IQ scores were faster at catching the movement of the bars when observing the smallest image. The results support prior research showing that individuals with higher IQs make simple perceptual judgments swifter and have faster reflexes. "Being 'quick witted' and 'quick on the draw' generally go hand in hand," says Melnick.
Researchers at the University of Rochester have found that a simple visual task can predict IQ. In the study, individuals watched video clips of black and white bars moving across a computer screen, the same clips you will see in this video. Their sole task was to identify which direction the bars drifted: to the right or to the left.
The images were presented in different sizes and the researchers measured how much time participants needed to be able to perceive the direction of the motion. Because the brain filters out background movement, it's actually harder for most people to see movement in the larger images.
The study found that people with higher IQs were actually the worst at seeing movement in the large images, or, in other words, the best at filtering out distracting sensory signals.
How people performed on this simple task turns out to be a very good predictor of their performance on a standardized intelligence test.
05/29/13 -
Intel Claims Haswell Architecture 50% Longer Battery Life vs. Ivy Bridge
"As with any major CPU microarchitecture launch, one can expect the usual 10~15% performance gains, but Intel apparently has put its efficiency focus into overdrive.
Haswell should provide 2x the graphics performance, and it's designed to be as power efficient as possible. In addition, the company has further gone on to state that Haswell should enable a 50% battery-life increase over last year's Ivy Bridge.
There are a couple of reasons why Haswell is so energy-efficient versus the previous generation, but the major reason is moving the CPU voltage regulator off of the motherboard and into the CPU package, creating a Fully Integrated Voltage Regulator, or FIVR.
This is a far more efficient design and with the use of 'enhanced' tri-gate transistors, current leakage has been reduced by about 2x ? 3x versus Ivy Bridge."
There are a couple of reasons why Haswell is so energy-efficient versus the previous generation, but there's one major one: the moving of the CPU voltage regulator off of the motherboard and into the CPU package, creating a Fully Integrated Voltage Regulator, or FVIR.
This is a far more efficien integration consumes less power and it greatly improves operational efficiency.
In addition, because we're once again moving something off of the motherboard, we're inching our way towards even smaller products, or motherboards of the same size that may have added functionality.
Thanks also to the use of "enhanced" tri-gate transistors, current leakage has been reduced by about 2x - 3x versus Ivy Bridge - an enormous improvement for just a single generation.
Based on the paper specs alone, Intel looks to have a winner with Haswell. The promises of battery-life being improved by up to 50% is just one thing, but there's so much more to like.
The fact that Haswell can also idle for up to 20x as long in a deep-sleep mode is also important. Just imagine what this could do for tablets, a la Microsoft Surface.
05/29/13 -
Spain's New S-80 Class Submarines Sink, But Won't Float
"In the era of total CAD and CAM, is it even possible to come up with a fundamentally flawed design ? Turns out, yes. This a fascinating engineering SNAFU.
Spain's newly built submarine is 100 tons too heavy, which means it is unable to float. 'Unfortunately for the Spainards, Quartz reports that they have already sunk the equivalent of $680 million into the Isaac Peral, and a total of $3 billion into the entire quartet of S-80 class submarines.
If Spain hopes to salvage its submarines, it must either find some weight that can be trimmed from the current design or lengthen the ship to accommodate the excess weight, The Local notes.
Though the latter option is more feasible, it is expected to cost Spain an extra $9.7 million per meter.'"
How did such an expensive project get funded while, as El Mundo notes, the Spanish military's entire special weapons program received a 98% cut?
Sheer pride seems to have been a factor: according to Harvard Magazine, the Isaac Peral is named for the Spanish inventor said to have built the first functional modern submarine, and as El Pais explains, Spain hoped the S-80 class would be a new homegrown breakthrough achieved without foreign help.
Now that Navantia is considering bringing in an American contractor to help with the redesign, that dream seems dead in the water.
05/29/13 -
Google Acquires Kite-Power Generator
"Google has acquired a US company that generates power using turbines mounted on tethered kites or wings. Makani Power will become part of Google X ? the secretive research and development arm of the search giant.
The deal comes as Makani carries out the first fully autonomous flights of robot kites bearing its power-generating propellers.
Google has not said how much it paid to acquire Makani, but it has invested $15m (?9.9m) in the company previously."
Rather than use fixed turbines to generate power, Makani has been experimenting with ?flying wings? adorned with several smaller turbines that act as propellers as the craft takes off.
Makani claims that mounting the turbines on a wing is more efficient as large numbers can be built with fewer materials than traditional tower-based turbines. In addition, the robot wings can land to avoid damage if wind speeds are too high or during bad weather.
It plans to operate the tethered wings in small groups of six with each one anchored at the points of a hexagon. The wings operate between 250m (820ft)and 600m above ground.
The firm has just successfully completed tests on a 30 kW prototype to see if its control system lets it launch, hover, generate power and land without human intervention. Fully working models will be larger and, Makani hopes, be able to generate 600 kW. It hopes the cost of the power generated will initially be competitive with off-shore wind farms.
Power is generated by the wing flying in a circular path, with electricity transmitted to the ground via the conducting core of the tether.
Google X is the ?big ideas? arm of the search firm that is tasked with testing out ideas outside the normal remit of the larger company. The lab has given rise to Google?s self-driving car initiative and did the early work on its augmented spectacles.
05/29/13 -
Duracell's Powermat Ties the Knot With PowerKiss
"Powermat Technologies has announced an agreement to merge with its European counterpart, PowerKiss, in a deal that will make what once was two disparate wireless power specifications come together under one.
Among airports, coffee shops, malls and arenas, Powermat, owned by Duracell, claims it has more than 1,500 charging spots in the U.S. In Europe, PowerKiss said it has 1,000 charging spots in airports, it also recently announced wireless charging at some McDonald's restaurants.
Powermat and PowerKiss are attempting to prevail against the competing Wireless Power Consortium (WPC), which supports the widely adopted Qi (pronounced "chee") standard used in Nokia, Samsung, and LG products.
Like the Qi standard, the PMA's Power 2.0 specification is based on magnetic induction wireless power technology."
To date, most wireless charging products in the market have been built around magnetic induction charging techniques, which require that the device be in contact with a charging surface, such as a charging pad. The device must remain in a relatively small area before the magnetic power connection is broken. In contrast, magnetic resonant charging allows mobile devices to be in close proximity, but not directly touching a charging base and still be powered.
While resonant charging is based on the same transmitter/receiver coil technology as magnetic induction, it transmits power at a greater distance. Other companies, such as WiTricity and Power By Proxi, offer devices based on other specifications that can charge from feet away or can be charged simultaneously by dropping them into a box.
WiTricity also recently announced it has joined the PMA group. PMA recently formed a technical working group to add a magnetic resonant implementation to the "Power 2.0" group of specifications.
WiTricity has been appointed to vice-chair of the magnetic resonant working group, and their first task is to create a specification for smartphone-ready highly resonant wireless power. This specification, the first draft of which is expected to be available to PMA members later this year, will be fully compatible with the PMA's existing inductive wireless power specification and products.
Texas Instruments announced it would ship wireless charging chips this year that support multiple protocols, allowing a wider range of mobile devices to be charged using competing standards.
The A4WP specification is supported by more than 30 members, including Samsung Electronics, Broadcom, IDT and Qualcomm.
A4WP's specification uses magnetic resonance. A4WP's specification allows for multiple mobile devices, from tablets to smartphones, to be charged at the same time when placed in a specified are of a charging pad.
05/29/13 -
Electric Car Startup 'Better Place' Liquidating After $850 Million Investment
"Better Place hoped to transform the energy industry with electric cars and battery switching stations.
Better Place wanted to make the world a better place by replacing gas stations with battery switching stations that would remove the driving mileage limitations from electric cars and eventually rid the world of fossil-fuel burning vehicles.
But after six years and burning through $850 million, the company is filing for liquidation in an Israeli court.
As reported by the Associated Press, Better Place's Board of Directors issued a written statement Sunday announcing that the company was winding down."
It was an audacious idea that came to symbolize Israel?s self-described status as ?Start-Up Nation,? a company that believed it could replace most gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles and reduce the world?s reliance on oil ? and all within a few years. But it all came crashing down.
Better Place offered an elegant solution. The vast majority of travelers who commute short distances could plug in their cars at home or work each day to keep their batteries recharged. For longer distances, customers could stop at the swapping stations, remove their used battery and replace it with a fully charged one in a matter of minutes.
In roughly five years, Better Place raised some $850 million from investors like General Electric Co., HSBC Holdings PLC and the European Investment Bank. Israel Corp., controlled by billionaire Idan Ofer, was the largest shareholder. Agassi persuaded French car maker Renault to make a customized electric version of its Fluence sedan.
For the most part, electric cars have not enjoyed their expected success anywhere. The battery alone in an electric car costs as much as a new gasoline-powered car, and electric vehicles are not selling nearly as fast as once projected. General Motors expected to sell 60,000 Chevy Volts globally last year, but sold just half that many. Sales of Nissan?s all-electric Leaf grew 22 percent around the world last year to 26,000, short of Nissan?s projected 50 percent growth.
Among Better Place?s mistakes, the company misjudged consumers? willingness to embrace the new technology. There was the issue of ?range anxiety,? the fear of some that the batteries, with ranges of about 160 kilometers, or 100 miles, would conk out in inconvenient places.
Others balked at the price. The cars sold for roughly $32,000, comparable to other sedans in Israel. And the pricing plans, roughly $300 to more than $500 a month depending on mileage, did not provide enough savings to overcome the doubters.
05/29/13 -
Graphene Yields Another Trick: Ultrashort Laser Pulses
"Experiments suggest that [graphene] can be used to create ultrashort laser pulses of any colour, owing to an ability to absorb light over a broad range of wavelengths.
So far, the researchers have coaxed the material to produce pulses of radiation from a broad spectrum of infrared wavelengths, which are useful in applications such as fibre optic communications.
Their results, together with the known properties of graphene, suggest that the material should be able to yield similar ultrashort pulses over the entire spectrum of visible light as well.
The discovery could help researchers to build small, cheap and highly versatile ultrashort-pulse lasers, with potential applications ranging from micro-machinery to medicine."
Graphene?s ability to absorb light of any colour comes from the peculiar structure of the energy levels of its electrons. In a typical solid non-metal material, electrons can exist in a low-energy state, in which they are bound to atoms, or in a higher-energy state, where they are able to move around and carry an electric current. Between these two states is a 'band gap', which requires a certain energy to be bridged. An electron can cross the band gap if the material absorbs light with that particular energy ? which means a particular wavelength. In the semiconductor materials used to make transistors in computer chips, electrons jumping over the band gap switch the current from 'off' to 'on'.
In graphene, by contrast, there is no band gap, and the electrons' energy can vary along a continuum. That makes single-sheet graphene useless in transistors, says Byung Hee Hong, a physicist at Seoul National University, but it gives the material an advantage in optics, enabling it to absorb a wide range of wavelengths of light.
?Usually, different materials are needed for different wavelengths, and there are not many [conventional] materials that can be used for the near-infrared region,? says Hong, who was not involved in the new study.
05/29/13 -
How great leaders inspire action - Why, How, What
Simon Sinek presents a simple but powerful model for how leaders inspire action, starting with a golden circle and the question "Why?" His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King, and the Wright brothers -- and as a counterpoint Tivo, which (until a recent court victory that tripled its stock price) appeared to be struggling.
05/29/13 -
Indiegogo $25 Button Tracker
Button TrackR is a small tracking device ? about the size of a quarter ? that you can place virtually anywhere. When combined with the free, easy-to-use app, it helps make your life easier by keeping track of important items, and even people or pets.
Button TrackR functions using low-power Bluetooth capabilities with a range of about 100 feet. The app conveniently tracks up to 10 Button TrackRs at once, so all your items can be taken care of.
Button TrackR works with your iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, new iPad, iPad mini, new iPod Touch, Samsung Android 4.0 devices, and Android 4.3 devices.
05/29/13 -
Soda, Other Sugar-Sweetened Drinks May Raise Kidney Stone Risk
Guzzling too much soda might not only hike up diabetes, obesity and stroke risk -- new research shows it could also increase your likelihood of experiencing kidney stones.
A new study in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology shows that people who drink soda and other sugary drinks, including fruit punch, every day have a higher risk of developing kidney stones than people who drink these beverages more infrequently.
The findings are especially important considering "drink more fluids!" is a common piece of advice people are told to reduce the risk of future kidney stones -- and the results suggest that all fluids may not be created equal when it comes to lowering risk.
The study included 194,095 people who were enrolled in the Nurses Health Study I and II, as well as the Health Professionals Follow-Up study. All the study participants provided information about their lifestyle habits and diets for more than eight years, as a median follow-up time.
Researchers found that people who reported drinking at least one sugar-sweetened soda each day had a 23 percent increased kidney stone risk over people who only drank less than one of these beverages a week. And people who drank the most punch in the study had an 18 percent higher kidney stone risk compared with those who drank the least punch.
Plus, certain beverages actually seemed to lower kidney stone risk -- particularly orange juice (12 percent lower), coffee (26 percent lower for caffeinated, and 16 percent lower for decaffeinated), tea (11 percent lower), wine (31 to 33 percent lower) and beer (41 percent lower).
Well, duh... The acid content of sodas leeches calcium and other minerals from the bones, so that stuff has to condense somewhere. I've had them and 'the cure' here is to drink a 3/4 glass of coke with the juice of about 4 fresh limes squeezed into it. Drink 1 or 2 glasses a day as needed and the stones will dissolve into a grainy like reddish sand that is excreted in your urine. Usually one day and you'll be flushed out. Easy, cheap, effective.
Of course, best thing is NOT to drink acidic sodas but hey, we have to enjoy our lives...so we drink the, dissolve the bones a bit more, get stones, drink lime and coke to flush them and go on with life.
I eat a lot of meat and often its a bit fatty so risk chloresterol and plaque buildup in my arteries, which can lead to circulation and heart problems. Instead of just changing my diet I take high doses (4 grams of each per day)
to try to keep it flushed out.
My friend Cowboy Tom laughed and laughed when I told him this. He said it makes no sense, just don't eat meat or fat...but he don't get it...
I LIKE the taste of meat and fat so will take the chance rather than live a boring, flavorless, experience less life with no pleasures...
otherwise WHAT IS THE POINT of living if you don't enjoy life while you are here? - JWD)
05/29/13 -
Dermal implants means strapless watch
[justurn] simply can?t wait, so he decided to submit to the cybermen early with his Android-controlled wristwatch attached with dermal implants.
[justurn]?s got the inspiration for his project from this earlier Hackaday post involving dermal implants and an iPod nano. The iPod nano doesn?t have a whole lot of functionality, though, but the Sony SmartWatch does, and without the inevitable accusations of fanboyism.
To prep his arm for the hardware upgrade, [justurn] had four titanium dermal anchors placed in his wrist. After letting his anchors heal for a few months, [justurn] installed very strong neo magnets in the bases for his anchors and the clip for the SmartWatch?s strap.
The result is a magnetically mounted, Android-controlled watch semi-permanently attached to [justurn] at the wrist. We love it too.
05/29/13 -
$2.99 Robochek app could save your life
Imagine an app that contacts you daily to ask if you are ok. If you fail to respond at a user specified time, the Robochek Life Sentry App
automatically sends a help text message to your emergency contacts asking them to check in on you.
With more than 200 million people living alone in the world and almost 300 million Android driven smartphones capable of monitoring personal security using Robochek, this app could be a life saver for many.
Do your friends or family visit or contact you daily?
If you disappear, how would they know?
How long would it take them to realize you are missing and begin to look for you?
Where would they look?
At a time you specify, Robochek automatically contacts you daily to ask ?Is everything OK??
If you press yes, the app sleeps until the next day to repeat the question.
If you fail to respond, it will repeat this question every hour until you press yes. If you fail to respond all day, Robochek will automatically request help using your personalized text message sent to up to three of your emergency contacts at the time you specify.
Robochek also provides the GPS location for the smartphone and as many details as you have provided in the message about your plans for the day. This information will make it easier to find you through GPS or backtrack to the locations where you had planned to be.
05/25/13 - Sorry I've been offline to get internet service installed. They finally showed up yesterday and needed new cable since this house only had cable internet so they came back today and completed it. Thanks for all the emails of concern. No conspiracy, no near death experience, no orgies (sad to report), no booze or drugs, just delayed internet installation. - JWD
05/25/13 -
Charge Your Cellphone In 20 Seconds (Eventually)
"An 18-year-old from Saratoga, California has won an international science fair for creating an energy storage device that can be fully juiced in 20 to 30 seconds.
The fast-charging device is a so-called supercapacitor, a gizmo that can pack a lot of energy into a tiny space, charges quickly and holds its charge for a long time.
What's more, it can last for 10,000 charge-recharge cycles, compared with 1,000 cycles for conventional rechargeable batteries, according to the inventor Eesha Khare."
This one in particular has been used so far only to power an LED, rather than a phone or laptop, but I hope in a few years near-instant charging of portable electronics will be the norm as supercapacitors grow more common.
To date, she has used the supercapacitor to power a light-emitting diode, or LED. The invention's future is even brighter. She sees it fitting inside cellphones and the other portable electronic devices that are proliferating in today's world, freeing people and their gadgets for a longer time from reliance on electrical outlets.
"It is also flexible, so it can be used in rollup displays and clothing and fabric," Khare added. "It has a lot of different applications and advantages over batteries in that sense."
05/25/13 -
Indication of anomalous heat energy production in a reactor device
An experimental investigation of possible anomalous heat production in a special type of reactor tube named E-Cat HT is carried out. The reactor tube is charged with a small amount of hydrogen loaded nickel powder plus some additives. The reaction is primarily initiated by heat from resistor coils inside the reactor tube.
Measurement of the produced heat was performed with high-resolution thermal imaging cameras, recording data every second from the hot reactor tube.
The measurements of electrical power input were performed with a large bandwidth three-phase power analyzer. Data were collected in two experimental runs lasting 96 and 116 hours, respectively.
An anomalous heat production was indicated in both experiments. The 116-hour experiment also included a calibration of the experimental set-up without the active charge present in the E-Cat HT. In this case, no extra heat was generated beyond the expected heat from the electric input.
Computed volumetric and gravimetric energy densities were found to be far above those of any known chemical source. Even by the most conservative assumptions as to the errors in the measurements, the result is still one order of magnitude greater than conventional energy sources. (courtesy of )
05/25/13 -
Why E-Cat Looks Like a Hoax
In the past few days, several readers have submitted word of a paper published on Arxiv allegedly confirming the efficacy of Andrea Rossi's "E-Cat," a device Rossi says transmutes nickel into copper, producing cheap energy in the process.
Ethan Siegel of ScienceBlogs takes a skeptical look at the buzz surrounding this paper, and asks some seemingly obvious questions, pointing out various ways in which the cold-fusion / cheap-energy claims could be either confirmed or debunked.
First time accepted submitter CdXiminez writes with a capsule of Siegel's points: "What would it take to convince a reasonable observer that you've got a controlled nuclear reaction going on here?
Things not shown in the earlier report: Show that nuclear transmutation has Start the device operating by whatever means you want, then disconnect all external power to it, Place a gamma-ray detect Accurately monitor the power drawn from all sources to the device at all times, while also monitoring the energy output from the device at all times."
05/25/13 -
Warpspeed Spacecraft to Alpha Centauri in Two Weeks
NASA?s Warp Drive Project: ?Speeds? that Could
Take a Spacecraft to Alpha Centauri in Two Weeks ? Even Though the System is 4.3 Light-Years Away.
A few months ago, physicist Harold White stunned the aeronautics world when he announced that he and his team at NASA had begun work on the development of a faster-than-light warp drive.
His proposed design, an ingenious re-imagining of an Alcubierre Drive, may eventually result in an engine that can transport a spacecraft to the nearest star in a matter of weeks ? and all without violating Einstein?s law of relativity.
Essentially, the empty space behind a starship would be made to expand rapidly, pushing the craft in a forward direction ? passengers would perceive it as movement despite the complete lack of acceleration.
White speculates that such a drive could result in ?speeds? that could take a spacecraft to Alpha Centauri in a mere two weeks ? even though the system is 4.3 light-years away.
In terms of the engine?s mechanics, a spheroid object would be placed between two regions of space-time (one expanding and one contracting).
A ?warp bubble? would then be generated that moves space-time around the object, effectively repositioning it ? the end result being faster-than-light travel without the spheroid (or spacecraft) having to move with respect to its local frame of reference.
?Remember, nothing locally exceeds the speed of light, but space can expand and contract at any speed..." (Thanks to Jim Tanner - JWD)
05/25/13 -
Wireless microcontroller/PC interface for $3
Sending data from a microcontroller to a PC usually requires some sort of serial connection, either through fiddly on-chip USB, FTDI chips, or expensive radio ICs.
[Scott] didn?t want to deal with this when creating a network of wireless temperature sensors, so he hacked up a few cheap 433 MHz radio transmitters and receivers to transmit data to a PC for about $3.
After sensor data is collected on a microcontroller and sent over radio, there?s still the issue of getting it into a PC. For this, [Scott] piped the data into the microphone port of a cheap USB sound card. We?ve seen this trick before both in the world of microcontrollers and loading programs onto a Commodore 64 via a cassette interface.
Once the data is sent into the sound card, it?s decoded with a a small Python app. Given the range and quality of the RF transmitters and receivers
[Scott] says it?s not an extremely reliable way to send data to a PC.
It is cheap, though, and if you need to read sensors wirelessly on a budget, it?s hard to do much better.
05/25/13 -
A Computer-based Smart Rifle With Incredible Accuracy, Now On Sale
"A story on NPR reports that the TrackingPoint rifle went on sale today, and can enable a 'novice' to hit a target 500 yards away on the first try.
The rifle's scope features a sophisticated color graphics display (video). The shooter locks a laser on the target by pushing a small button by the trigger...
But here's where it's different: You pull the trigger but the gun decides when to shoot.
It fires only when the weapon has been pointed in exactly the right place, taking into account dozens of variables, including wind, shake and distance to the target.
The rifle has a built-in laser range finder, a ballistics computer and a Wi-Fi transmitter to stream live video and audio to a nearby iPad.
Every shot is recorded so it can be replayed, or posted to YouTube or Facebook."
(I know everyone who watches sci-fi puzzles why robots are such horrible shooters. You'd think their targeting systems would be near infallible, so here we have something close to that in our world. - JWD)
05/25/13 -
LEGO NXT Balancing Road TwoWheels Robot
LEGO NXT Two Wheels self balancing inverted pendulum Gyro stabilized position course and speed. Jumping and climbing functions in Road Mode. /
NXT Ballbot applies the same technology on two axis: /watch?v=5Eau8y...
NXT Ballbot Simulation with MsExcel: /
05/25/13 -
Hunger for Profit - Why Poverty?
Why are crops the best performing investments? For more on this and teaching resources linked to the film, go to www.whypoverty.net
On one side of the world American star investor Jim Rogers arrives at his elegant offices and explains how large investments and movements of money affect prices. On the other side of the world market vendors in Kenya feel the effects.
Prices on global exchanges for maize and wheat have tripled in the last 5 years. Maize has been the best-performing investment since the financial crisis began. Global returns rose in the last 5 years by: 55% 144% 146% for maize.
You might also want to watch Land Rush about the race for land in Africa. How can so much money be made from food speculation and a billion people still go hungry in the world? (Thanks to Travis in Dallas! - JWD)
05/25/13 -
Meyl shows Tesla longitudinal waves for wireless energy transmission
Konstantin Meyl shows wireless transmission of energy by longitudinal waves (scalar waves) by using two Tesla coils (one transmitter and one receiver). Year: 2003
as I seem to remember some kind of fraud with a German engineer a few months back, don't know if it is Meyl. Seems to have had something to do with scaling theory. On looking it up, it was
- who had been convicted of a multi-million-dollar fraud in Germany, persuaded people to invest in the scheme supposedly based on gravitational waves. Muller conned some 3,000 investors out of about five million Euros ($6.5m, ?4m), the court said. He had invented a pseudo-scientific theory he called "global scaling", which he said allowed him to use gravitational waves to prevent electronic smog, use novel methods of scanning to be applied in medicine, and transmit "information without any limits in quantity, quality or time". - JWD
05/25/13 -
Archimede's Screw Cat autofeeder
We?ve seen automated food dispensers for pets, but none that go so far as to build large plastic screws for dispensing kibble.
This isn?t [Mathieu]?s first
an earlier version used a wheel to dispense cat food in excessively large version. To improve upon his first build, [Mathiu] decided to use an Archimedean screw to dispense food in 5 gram increments.
There was a problem, though: a proper industrial screw cost about $1500 and the ?consumer? versions of what he wanted were trash. He though about casting one in epoxy but didn?t want to poison his cat with strange chemicals.
He ended up using PolyMorph for his screw, a plastic that melts at 60? C and is also used in medical devices.
The electronics of the build are an Arduino, a
DS1307 real-time clock, LCD display, and a relay board powering an electric screwdriver motor. From the video demo below, we?re going to say [Mathieu] put together a pretty nice automated cat feeder.
05/25/13 -
Electric motorcycle hits the racing circuit
Check out that beefy electric motor hanging out where the swing arm connects to the body of this motorcycle. It?s the muscle that makes this recently completed electric motorcycle ready to race.
[Jackson Edwards] has been hard at work building this from the ground up. His goal was to make it competitive with production line motorcycles and his most recent test runs are pointing to success. The film shows off a couple of problems with the rear suspension. This actually led to him dumping the bike on a turn.
He was unharmed but the control panel on the handlebars was unfortunately trashed. A bit of work fixed the handling and he was able to ride with confidence. We?re struck by how quiet the thing is as it tears past the camera at the very beginning of the video.
Sure, we?ve seen other electric motorcycles before. Those were all conversions from gas. Designing from the ground up really opened up a lot of choices not possible with a retrofit. Make sure to dig through all the posts on his blog to get the full picture.
The E-motards first day at the track. went pretty well, and hung with the 450 supermotos (if barely) With double the horsepower in the mail, it should be REALLY competetive next race.
05/25/13 -
Herd single cell organisms with your mind (not exactly)
Most project tips involving brainwaves get passed over because it?s hard to make much out of that type of control. This project doesn?t necessarily make progress on the control side on this, but you have to admit that herding life forms with your thoughts deserves a closer look.
[Geva] set up a rig that allows him to interact with paramecium ? tiny single cell organism that are happy to swim around all day long. Just like vertebrates they?re not big fans of electric shocks. Run some current through the fluid and they?ll swim toward the negative electrode.
This experiment uses four pencil leads as electrodes. These are driven by an Arduino which reacts to the input from a toy brain wave device. Concentrate in just the right way and they will swim wherever you will them to.
This isn?t quite as involved as cockroach mind control, but it?s every bit as interesting...
Paramecia will change their swimming direction in response to an electrical field. With an Ardunio, a hacked brain sensor and a litte code you can control your own army of single celled minions with mind power alone.
05/25/13 -
Invention sprays fresh lemon or lime juice straight onto your food
A spray gun that spikes straight into citrus fruits and instantly extracts fresh juice to be squirted onto food and drinks has been launched.
The plastic ?Stem? gadget plugs directly into lemons, limes and oranges and sprays out a fine mist of tangy juice.
The ?7.99 device means users don?t have to worry about the nightmare of making a runny mess when squeezing a lemon or fret about wayward pips falling onto their plate.
The three-inch atomiser can be used to quickly spritz up a salad or a gin and tonic rather than go through the arduous process of getting a knife and chopping up the fruit.
Stem was designed by U.S. entrepreneur Tim Houle and developed by American company Quirky. The New York firm was launched in 2009 to help inventors see their ideas come to light.
05/25/13 -
Answer the phone
Speaking of the coming decline of cell phones (as they quietly morph into the power of Google Glass), our cell phone is sometimes set on vibrate instead of ring and we miss cal